Penis envy vs Womb envy 

All of us might agree with the truth that, at least once in a lifetime, we have found ourselves desiring to possess the wings of a bird. (i.e by seeing the birds fly, we might think about having wings) Should we consider it as an envy or as a component of our personality formation? 

The answer is no. Because envy occurs when we perceive someone or something similar to us, if we see someone sharing characteristics or experiences with ourselves, we may desire that. For example, A short man may feel envy the tall man’s height because they identify themselves with the same category. When it comes to a bird, we don’t feel envious because we couldn’t put a bird and ourselves in a same category. And that’s how penis envy and womb envy come into play.

Penis Envy 

Freud proposed the term ‘Penis envy’ in 1908. Penis envy was defined by Freud as an envy felt by a female towards male for possessing a penis. 

Theory of Psychosexual development 

Freud gave the theory of psychosexual development which deals with the development of sexuality and gender identity in an individual. Through this theory, Freud says that a little girl sees her mother as her first love object. But when the girl realises that her mother doesn’t have a penis, she feels anger or upset toward her. Later, this feeling of castration (psychological feeling or fear that occurs after realizing that one lacks something important or desirable), shifts her love from mother to father. Freud believes that this may lead to ‘narcissistic wound’ (a kind of emotional hurt) and that lead to ‘penis envy’. Freud suggested that the only way to resolve penis envy is when a girl give birth to a male child, who carry a penis with him which she felt as incomplete or lacking in her life. 

Read More: The Interpretations of Dreams by Sigmund Freud

Freud explained that penis envy may lead to 

1. Development of rage towards mother as she failed to give birth to her with penis.
2. Neglect or diminished maternal influence. 
3. The female may give up in sexual activity like masturbation or vaginal intercourse. Karl Abraham, classified adult women in whom the penis envy seen intense, into two types  

A. Wish fulfilling type 

Women of this type tend to have fantasies about having a penis, driven by the wish to own the masculine qualities. They also tend to perform behaviors that address the need to own masculinity with performances such as singing, dancing etc. 

B. Vindictive type 

This type of women tends to take revenge or humiliate male. They may also try to demasculinize men either emotionally or physically by compensating their inferiority. Ernest Jones, explained that the penis envy can be reduced via the three alternatives: 

1. Giving birth to a male baby, because he has a penis. 
2. The wish to possess penis in clitoris  
3. Enjoying penis during intercourse. 

Turkel suggest that penis envy is rooted in the idea that, men want women to envy their gender and the privileges that comes with it. 

Helen Deutsch was the first woman to enter Freud’s Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1918 and published first book in psychoanalysis on women sexuality. She proposed that when a girl identify lack of penis, she will stop comparing herself with her father and develop fantasies of being raped. She believed that ‘rape fantasy’ was an integral part of their sexual development.  

Karen Horney didn’t reject the concept of penis envy. Instead, she added that penis envy is nothing but the longing for the power a male rejoices. Freud explained penis envy on the basis of anatomy. Whereas, Karen viewed it in two ways. From an anatomical aspect, penis envy starts from the desire to urinate like male. A male can see their genitals while urinating whereas a female cannot. Additionally, it seems as a permission to masturbate, while in females it is forbidden to touch or manipulate their private parts. From a sociocultural aspect, the society always label a female as inferior, simply because of their sex and as a result they just want to come out of the feminine role. So that they can enjoy the qualities and privileges a male rejoice because of their sex. She considered it as a symbol of inequality between sexes. 

Womb Envy 

A very large number of psychologists opposed the concept of penis envy. But the work of Karen Horney is notable. Karen Horney in response to the Freud’s concept of Penis envy introduced  a concept called ‘womb envy’. Womb envy is the concept that describes that men experience  envy towards women’s womb, which they lack. 

Read More: Karen Horney’s Legacy: Womb Envy, Neurosis, and the Feminist Perspective

Though Karen Horney spoke a lot about womb envy, several other psychologists spoke about it in different names like parturition envy, vagina envy, uterus envy and woman envy. 

Brian Luke explained three ways a male deal with womb envy: 

• By compensating – Creating or working in areas relatively to men. Such as reinforcing hyper masculine activity like sports and business. 
• By revaluing – devaluing women’s role or magnifying the functions of men.
• By appropriation – taking control on the female specific functions. 

Link between Womb Envy and Misogyny 

Boehm (1930, p.457) says that when someone possess something that we don’t have, it may create a sense of inferiority and to compensate that feeling of inferiority, misogyny comes into play. 

Lerner (1974, p.542) argues that when we envy about something, we tend to devaluate it as a defense mechanism. So that it loses the capacity to be envied about. 

Jacobson (1950) explains that misogyny as a result of reaction formation (socially unacceptable emotion is converted into socially accepted emotion). In the case of womb envy (socially unacceptable emotion) might turn into misogyny or devaluation, the emotion being accepted  by the society. 

Evidence for Womb envy 

Bruno Bettelheim (1954) mentioned about young boys and adolescents diagnosed with schizophrenia, expressed their wish to bear children and agonized with the desire to have  breasts like female, which boys considered as the source of power. 

Rejection of Womb envy 

Freud rejected the concept of womb envy by considering that, children believe babies are given  birth in a similar way we excrete of faeces. Since this can be done by both boys and girls,  there’s no chance for womb envy to be developed at a very early age.